The Enduring Mystery of the Anasazi

Time-worn pueblos and dramatic "cliff towns," set amid the stark,
rugged mesas and canyons of Colorado and New Mexico, mark the
settlements of some of the earliest inhabitants of North America,
the Anasazi (a Navajo word meaning "ancient ones").

By 500 A.D. the Anasazi had established some of the first
identifiable villages in the American Southwest, where they
hunted and grew crops of corn, squash and beans. The Anasazi
flourished over the centuries, developing sophisticated dams and
irrigation systems; creating a masterful, distinctive pottery
tradition; and carving intricate, multi-room dwellings into the
sheer sides of cliffs that remain among the most striking
archaeological sites in the United States today.

Yet by the year 1300, they had abandoned their settlements,
leaving their pottery, implements, even clothing -- as though
they intended to return -- and seemingly disappeared into
history. Their homeland remained empty of human beings for more
than a century -- until the arrival of new tribes, such as the
Navajo and the Ute, followed by the Spanish and other European
settlers.

The story of the Anasazi is tied inextricably to the beautiful
but harsh environment in which they chose to live. Early
settlements, consisting of simple pithouses scooped out of the
ground, evolved into sunken kivas that served as meeting and
religious sites. Later generations developed the masonry
techniques for building square, stone pueblos. But the most
dramatic change in Anasazi living -- for reasons that are still
unclear -- was the move to the cliff sides below the flat-topped
mesas, where the Anasazi carved their amazing, multilevel
dwellings.

The Anasazi lived in a communal society that evolved very slowly
over the centuries. They traded with other peoples in the
region, but signs of warfare are few and isolated. And although
the Anasazi certainly had religious and other leaders, as well as
skilled artisans, social or class distinctions were virtually
nonexistent.

Religious and social motives undoubtedly played a part in the
building of the cliff communities and their final abandonment.
But the struggle to raise food in an increasingly difficult
environment was probably the paramount factor. As populations
grew, farmers planted larger areas on the mesas, causing some
communities to farm marginal lands, while others left the mesa
tops for the cliffs. But the Anasazi couldn't halt the steady
loss of the land's fertility from constant use, nor withstand the
region's cyclical droughts. Analysis of tree rings, for example,
shows that a final drought lasting 23 years, from 1276 to 1299,
finally forced the last groups of Anasazi to leave permanently.

Although the Anasazi dispersed from their ancestral homeland,
they did not disappear. Their legacy remains in the remarkable
archaeological record that they left behind, and in the Hopi,
Zuni and other Pueblo peoples who are their descendants.